MONTREAL, CANADA - MAY 12: Landon Donovan #10 of the Los Angeles Galaxy kicks the ball during the MLS match against the Montreal Impact at the Olympic Stadium on May 12, 2012 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images)

Photo: Richard Wolowicz, Getty Images

MONTREAL, CANADA - MAY 12: Landon Donovan #10 of the Los Angeles...

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England's David Beckham holds a cap that he was presented with in a special half-time ceremony to honour the five players that have played for England over 100 times each during the international friendly soccer match between England and Belgium at Wembley Stadium in London, Saturday, June 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth, Associated Press

England's David Beckham holds a cap that he was presented with in a...

You play professionally in the United States in one of the big three sports. Your real estate footprint is large and your fancy car is marvelous. Valet park every time. Your plate is the most expensive on the menu. When you get old and tottery, it is unlikely you'll be wandering around penniless on city streets. Investments will soften your end. And you earned it. Talent pushed you from the humble class to the wealthy one.

Sports can do that. But if you play professional soccer in America, you might still eat at Sizzler and drive to your modest apartment in a 2001 Honda. Don't think too much about getting old.

Major League Soccer's player salaries were published recently. Some earn less than $40,000 a year. The median wage is about $85,000. Six years ago, it was $50,000. Not a bad improvement considering incomes for U.S. households have fallen, by some accounts, 7 percent over the last decade. But when you compare it to the big three American sports, choosing a career in soccer pales by comparison - NBA players average about $5 million, $3 million for big league baseball and a couple of million in the NFL.

MLS teams play to a median of about $3 million in total wages. In the English Premier League it hits nearly $60 million. This explains why most of America's top talent plays overseas. The Los Angeles Galaxy's Landon Donovan is the exception, arguably the best U.S. player of his generation. Praise him for investing much of his career on the home front. Not too long ago, he was earning peanuts compared to the $2 million-plus he pulls now.

Beckham arrived in MLS in 2007 and immediately liked the drive-through at In-N-Out Burger. But he wasn't willing to pull up in a 2001 Honda for his fix. His nickname was Goldenballs. He didn't work for a few hundred grand unless it was by the week. MLS needed his brand if interest in the league were to grow. So they enacted the Beckham Rule - teams could sign a couple of top-drawer players and pay them salaries that would set them apart from the rest of their teammates. Class on the field met economic class in the locker room.

Back then, San Jose striker Alan Gordon played for the Galaxy. A second job as a youth team coach supplemented his $30,000 salary. Roommates were necessary. Job security was dependent on him banging in goals. Today, playing for the Quakes, he pulls in more than $100,000. Comfortable, but soccer players retire when they hit their mid-30s. And what do you do then when all you know is the ball?

Zach Slaton, a contributor to Forbes, analyzes soccer by the numbers. He believes MLS is moving in the right direction. "As with any rapidly expanding business (approximately 50 percent increase in number of teams and a nearly 71 percent increase in number of players since 2007), MLS has had to manage sustainable growth in player wages to keep the quality of play high and the cost of operating the league low," he says, and with the median salary rising, "all of this means a family can at the least dream of seeing their young soccer-playing son making an upper-middle class income if he were to sign an MLS contract. ... Most importantly, the family won't be fearful of their child falling into the trappings of celebrity associated with other major U.S. sports in pursuit of such a dream."

Soccer - the humble game of the middle class.

Alan Black is an author and freelance writer. Read his blog at blogs.sfgate.com/soccer.